He was the boy everyone saw first — headphones hanging around his neck, board under his arm, hair messy in that reckless-on-purpose kind of way. Walker Scobell, the guy who skipped class to land kickflips behind the cafeteria, the one teachers sighed over and girls giggled about.

You were the girl no one saw coming — quiet, paint splattered on your jeans, sketchbook always tucked under your arm. You sat under the oak tree during lunch, drawing things no one else bothered to notice.

He noticed.

He always noticed.

But you kept it secret — your glances, your aching little crush — because worlds like yours and his weren’t supposed to overlap.

Except they did.

Every. Time.

It started sophomore year. He crashed right outside the art room, board skidding, backpack flying. You helped him gather his stuff while he smirked like it was no big deal.

“Thanks,” he said. “Wasn’t my smoothest moment.”

You shrugged. “At least you committed to the bit.”

He stared at you like no one ever had.

Like no one could.

People didn’t get you two.

“He’s a delinquent.”

“She’s weird.”

“He’s trouble.”

“She’s too good for him.”

You heard it all.

Walker ignored it.

He always sat next to you at assemblies, leaned against your locker like it belonged to him, walked you home when it rained — even though he pretended it was because “the roads were too slippery for skating.”

You never told him how your heart flipped when he looked at you. He never told you that you were the only girl he wanted.

Junior year.

The town art fair.

You had a booth, sketches pinned up with string lights — portraits of movement, color, meaning. People came and went, admiring, flattering, buying.

Walker didn’t look at the art.

He looked at you.

“Which one’s your favorite?” you asked.

He pointed at a piece that looked familiar — your interpretation of someone balancing on a board mid-jump, frozen mid-air.

“It’s you,” he said quietly.

Senior year.

Rumors swirled — that you’d get into art school, that Walker would barely graduate. People said you’d drift apart.

But he kept finding you. And you kept letting him.

That night by the train tracks, where he practiced late and you brought coffee, everything changed.

He attempted a new trick. Failed. Tried again. Failed harder. You shook your head and dusted gravel from his palms.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

He chuckled. “Then you’d be the last person I saw. Could be worse.”

You flushed. Hard.

You sat together on the frozen grass, the moon catching the blue streaks you’d painted across your nails.